Window Smashed & Awning Disaster at Vanlife 2025

Window Smashed & Awning Disaster at Vanlife 2025

welcome to Radford Corner at the Van Life Festival 2025 we’ve actually been set up here since Wednesday and we spent a couple of days getting to know our friends reconnecting and having some lovely social time we’ve got a great pitch set up here we’ve bought the bus with us which is nicely on display for people who haven’t seen it yet and we’ve got a lovely comfy can wednesday Thursday very very blustery um and we had a bit of a problem i had the window open on the other side had the roof open and this was only open a little bit and a gust of wind come through and popped this right out and it smashed the window we’ve had our own disaster my window was only open a crack and I closed Steve window which was massively open because the wind was coming and I thought “Oh this side will be fine.” Nope look smashed window in pieces hey it’d be nice and fresh air getting through there tonight my love we might have to swap sides but Phil re I’ve got this magic stuff called super glue okay i can’t fix these struts unfortunately cuz they’re snapped off but if Steve just shows all the broken bits on the floor there there we are i shall super glue the corner of the window back together and we can get that back on perfect good man cheers Phil and there you go phil’s fixed that as good as new well it’ll do for now and we’ll get it sorted but hey at least Lynn won’t be getting fresh air coming through the window when she’s sleeping tonight but we weren’t the only casualty yeah that dreaded having an awning go over the top in a in a gust of wind that happened to somebody on Thursday so right here guys is the nightmare that everyone tries to avoid look it’s gone over the top i’ve heard about it i’ve never seen one over the top like that it’s not been pegged down properly and it is pretty windy here but uh darn they’ve got the aftermath of this to deal with when they get back oh my days look at that that’s going to be an expensive problem to fix hopefully it’s not done any damage to the van and here’s the rescue mission to try and save it at least hopefully you can fold it in and get it home many frame building attempts later well we’ve managed to get it away so it’s get me home it’s a bit damaged may need a new one look the legs are snapped off here and what have you but there you go guys don’t leave your awning out in winds probably going to cost him 1,500 quid to put a new awning on it now i’d forgotten just how windy it could be here at this show ground it is absolutely blowing a gale all the weather keeps coming across it’s making me quite nervous actually because I can see the flags fluttering mentally and the van keeps rocking every so often as well so that’s a bit weird so I thought I’d take this opportunity to have a cup of coffee and tell you about this week’s spot which is incogn incogn is all about online privacy and data protection i had no idea just how valuable all my information and my data could be there are data brokers out there who have software that goes out and scour the internet looking for your information anytime you fill out a form online or add your details online that information can be vulnerable to being scraped and collected and put into giant lists that those data brokers can then sell on now the kind of people who are looking to buy those lists could be baddies who want to scam you or scam other people or use your data in really inappropriate ways or it could be big corporations who really want to hone their marketing down to give you more exposure to their products so you’re more likely to buy their product the good news is that we own our own data and we have the right to contact those data brokers and request that they remove our information from their lists the bad news is there are loads of data brokers and even more lists and it could take years to get that done this is where incogn is invaluable they can do it for us in three simple steps the first is we set up an account the second is we grant them permission to work on our behalf and the third and this is the really easy bit for us we sit back and let Incogn do the work the whole process is automated so they contact the data brokers they make the request handle any objections that the brokers have and then keep us updated either with monthly reports or using an online dashboard if you’re interested in increasing and enhancing your own online privacy go to incogn.com/radfords add the code Radfords at checkout and you get 60% off an annual plan thanks incogn for sponsoring this video and reducing the amount of spam I have to deal with but I will show you around our camping pitch in a bit and I want to show you some of the upgrades we’ve done in our van because we made a couple of significant changes in there we’ll show you that in a bit life changing significant changes right let’s go have a look around first of all so we’re over here right next to Thomas Dlo let’s have a look around here yeah all the roads have got really great names so we’re going to have a little explore and see what we find the first stretch of Thomas Dlo is given over to all these traders it’s a real festival vibe down at this end tiny kangaroo danceport the pinnacle of the Thomas Diplo Close is this camper van live lounge it is stunning they’ve got live music most of the day we can hear it from our pitch so each night I’ve been going to sleep with the sound of melon music [Applause] oh how we doing boy we’re making pizza free tea oh fantastic look at this right okay i see yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah brilliant he pulled a nice crowd here hey beautiful crowd yeah lovely they’ve been been been with me most of the day actually it’s been lovely so this one here is pizza freaki it’s going to have gorgonola beautiful Italian cheese with some walnuts and some of my own infused honey amazing the drizzle shot the drizzle we’ve stopped at the stand for the crafty bird’s nest and they’re just down the road in Staffordshire i’m very excited i have a cupboard that really irritates me i can’t get it tidy i’ve got different size pots and things in there for tea and coffee and sugar and all the things aren’t right they do stacking tins but even more exciting they can personalize these so I might just have to get in touch with them when we get home and get some Roman rabbits next I saw a guy come past on a tiny mobility scooter so I asked him how compact it packs down to and he showed us right very very light breaks down and packs into nothing and literally takes about a minute to break it took about 60 seconds to break that down now I’m filming it it’s going to take 3 minutes to put it back together am I right i didn’t yeah probably under the pressure under the pressure now look how neat that is and I’m guessing it’s very strong it’s going to hold our weight aircraft still aircraft alley oh my goodness how much is something like this um well new you’re probably looking um about 3 or 4,000 oh my days right wow secondhand they go for anything from 600 okay up to 1,200 but that’s the key that’s the make of it right there travel scoop travel scoop and how long’s that battery going to last you um well this this obviously these are designed for flight or cruise cruise ships right um 8 8 miles okay 8 n miles but you obviously they’re double stackable so you can put another one ah right perfect of course you can get uh suspension seat bicycle right straight on there so yeah all good i love it fantastic they’ve been out long have they uh yeah yeah in America probably about the last 8 n years okay really good so there’s the target six 600 800 quid would be a bargain on a used one yes all right yeah definitely i love it thank you for showing it you’re welcome thank you boys and off he goes just one speed yeah yeah 6 mph enjoy fantastic how cool is that we’ve walked along Market Street and there are plenty of stalls here including a corner store for your L rolls in your bread there are over 150 different traders and caterers and market stalls here and this is where my new little friend Ethan from the Family Go Explore YouTube channel made us a little mushroom as a gift in past years George has really loved the mini driving experiences but I think he’s getting a little bit too big for it now he’s actually spent most of his time camped out in a den that he’s made over in the woods what I love about the Vario Street is there’s always something new to discover right and I’m going to show you this one now I’m really sad that my friends Jen and Kath from Slowly Wilding aren’t here on Vario Street they live in Olive who is a converted library bus now this converted library bus has a completely different theme to their cool zen beautiful neutral tones this bus is all about movie nostalgia there are 18 different movie and TV themes to this my favorite is the Trotters cocktail lounge i think that’s very cool we might have to bring some drinks at some point but as we go around I’ve spotted Ghostbusters there’s a little Jurassic Park up there but there’s more on the bonnet of Jurassic Park a flying Daffy Duck or not very cool look my favorite the mystery machine or is it the Dukes of Hazard or those bananas right or the 18 there’s just too many themes on here it’s got to be the 18 sunday afternoons watching the 18 with my dad right what I love about Vario Street is that there’s something new to discover every time it’s set up and there’s such a great close-knit community too right next to Jelly Legs Bouncy Castle you’ve got the Field of Dreams go have a look in there i love the iconic shape of this bus here it’s taken over a year to convert but the colors and the themes the surf dude theme it’s all beautiful i really love the color of the upholstery it’s like a jewel blue and there are lots of little details inside that I love even the crystals on this wave theme it’s stunning it’s a 3D effect and there’s a surfboard as a desk this is a vehicle we’ve not seen before it’s a 1971 Winnie Bgo and it’s on its debut trip out we’ve just taken a lovely long walk down memory lane it seems there are more vehicles here from the older older times um I’m surprised how much orange there used to be in those times i’m sure my grandparents had deck chairs that match some of those floral prints but it’s all orange apart from this which is a gorgeous green setup now this is a bar to carry to travel with isn’t it it’s wonderful isn’t it i love the copper work it’s beautiful right and it looks like they might be distilling gin or something there there we go cheers we’ve definitely found the truck zone these are massive right but there’s no Millie this year hey they’ve moved to Bulgaria right yeah of course there’s quite a few people I’m missing this year but that’s great because there’s lots of things that I haven’t seen before and I’m enjoying that side of the event and you’ll see behind Lindsay you see the showers they’ve got these plonked around it was a bit cold for you the other day was it uh yes the heating had failed but it’s fine we have our own van our own shower we just bumped into Neil and had a good chat from Nemo’s Camper Adventures he’s a sweetheart he doesn’t smile enough neil we need to smile more and look who’s next to Marian and Chris from Tread the Globe are here fantastic no one cares about them it’s true dean that everybody loves they did a talk this afternoon which we missed we did we were busy doing I don’t know but I think they’ve got some special announcements so make sure you head over to their channel and find out what’s going on okay we’ve come to the main stage place and there is a sand pip kids which is always a delight pillow sand in your pillows blah and right the other side of this field is the main stage last night I was here till late dancing to a covers band and tonight we’ve got that Brit pop band who were here last year and were fantastic right you enjoyed them didn’t you so we’re at the Roma stand which they had this great 48 volt system I looked at last time i came I saw Alex food i gave him a cuddle and then I switched off cuz they talked electric it’s beyond me but Alex says he’s got some Roma beer what’s going on here depends cheers i’ll give them a leave do you think the beer bottle opener on the outside is actually going to be a giveaway when you try to sneak something into a festival remind me that needs designing into the neck or something but it does a great job how cool are they isn’t it very cool huh it’s fantastic right we’ve taken a stop right at the end of the day to meet the people at Van Club and they’ve been telling us all about what they’re here for they are the fastest growing new membership club and they are all about the kind of rallies that we used to do with the boys as they were growing up we used to rock up in a field we’ve met the same people every time and our kids have got lifelong friends that met met at those rallies they specialize in fun weekends away there’s always entertainment and it’s always near something interesting and each of these start about £10 a night so I’m eating at Patel’s tonight mrs patel’s lamb she bites are they going to be all right oh yeah they’re going to be lovely you’re going to love them so color smokers and these spicy meat things fantastic had these last year they are amazing tonight was a 70s theme night and they had an ABBA cover band on which was awesome they had everyone up dancing and singing along [Music] so Mark Van Life has just turned up with a What do you got here mate it’s the dregs of the ra oh we’ve got some amazing slowcooked meat in there i can see the flavor in there already and I’ve come armed with a fork what have we got here M so it looks like you got there you’ve got a lovely bit of pork in there is that maybe a meatball on the end there that sauce that smells absolutely wonderful i think that’s the best ragu I’ve probably ever made actually i can confirm cheers boys cheers cheers cheers happy rain yeah might be rain in there but hey we’re undercover here we’re all good this is decent isn’t it is it hey honey you got to try this man i know i have this is amazing mark reckons this could well be the best ragu he’s ever made isn’t it nice it’s like the meat has like softened oh that’s lovely isn’t it i know you were full but you just have to try it right i know i know is that in your recipe book by any chance it is in the recipe book where can they get that uh we can get that online at vanlife feats.com and I’ve already got the recipe book so Phil asked to borrow them a lead and I remembered last weekend well I didn’t remember actually because last weekend we found out it was broken so Phil’s going to fix it now what’s problem well Steve we’ve opened it or you helped me open it and we seem to have found a minor problem i just want to say in the comments can anybody tell me what’s wrong with this [Music] oops i’m not sure but I think somebody might have got a bit mad when they were twisting that so [Music] but it can be fixed easily enough Phil yeah it’ll be done in 10 minutes mate thanks mate by qualified electricians by the way a few minutes later all done for Yeah it took about 3 minutes just to uh restraighten off the ends and put them back into the connectors all good and we’ve now tightened tightened properly down the cable stops so that Steve can’t twist it off again well that saved me probably 2530 quid good for a new lead so we spent the evening drinking and chatting with friends around the fire pit we all had a few beers some of us more than others and as usual we all had a great laugh but when Gary lent a little too far on one of Conrad’s chairs and it broke everyone was in stitches gary broke the chair i think it’s fair to say it was another great evening at the Van Life Festival good morning good morning i am feeling amazing i’ve not really drunk this weekend and we’ve got brand new mattresses and I can’t tell you just how well I’m sleeping on them i want to replace the mattress at home with the same style absolutely now these mattresses are from Steve and our friend at Caravan Beds they do custom mattresses any shape and size you like yeah and if you know what we did when we got this van is we took the back cushions from the rear lounge and we put them in the summer house we were not going to use them cuz packing them away the whole time right we just had the base mattresses and they’re quite thin so they were and they’ve got they’ve got gaps and the more than one mattress so we gave Steven the dimensions of the the mattresses that we wanted he’s made them completely bespoke to the size of the bed it’s got different uh levels of firmness and softness and some have memory foam some don’t there’s all sorts of amazing technology that goes into these mattresses and when we were at the NEC back in February um we laid on lot in fact I’ve been doing it for years i’ve been going to his stand and laying on the bed to test the different we went with the Tahoe from memory absolutely love it it’s really thick it’s really well sprung and my hips usually when I’ve been in the the motor home for a couple of nights my hips are start starting to ache not a problem at all today i feel flipping amazing absolutely amazing and another super bonus our friends from leisure bedding.com have dropped off a second set of bespoke size made to measure bedding that goes on as well these are really soft and smooth sheets and they’re perfect cuz they match the even though the mattresses are s slightly different we’ve got one that fits Steve’s mattress and one that fits mine i don’t think I want the kids in the back here anymore they’re going to have to go sleep in tents or stay behind or run behind us and catch up we’ll leave them behind exactly so I’m really excited to share that with you right and we’ll put a link to these two in the description if you want customiz mattresses custom bedding yeah custom size and shape they can do the corner bits that are chopped off for French anything he’ll actually send out a template sheet you chop it and make it fit what you want and then they make the mattress to that exactly that so cool right okay it’s a bit windy out there this morning we’re going to start packing up cuz we’re going to head off about just after lunch today I think but what a weekend it’s been so far i’m not packing up i’ve already been cleaning in here i’m going to go and have some raiki i think I’ll take you with me and I will show you the holistic area so I am booked in for Raike and this is only my third or fourth time having Raike and I don’t really understand what it is first time I had the most amazing experience next couple of times didn’t really feel much so going to give it another go the holistic stands are all a couple of minutes walk from our pitch and they’re on the area called as Namaste Way there’s been yoga plant medicine workshops spiritual jewelry one weekend of pampering later i’ve just been laying down for about 30 minutes while Tasha has been tweaking whatever it is that she tweaks in the chakras it’s absolutely beautiful and really impressive we’ve got self-defense lessons going on right now there’s also been crystals and massages and yoga there’s been a really diverse mix of workshops and activities that you can get involved in and also some one-to-one sessions like the raiki I just had in Tasha’s huts oh I feel so chilled now and this is Tasha’s Shakra shed just there it’s awesome right that’s us pretty much packed up what a fantastic festival this has been we love it here we really do this year we said we weren’t going to do many festivals i think we said Camp Van Camp out van life and van love that’s the next one we’re going to do it’s at Elington Airfield i’ll put a link in the description for that one also tickets for this one are going to be available soon for next year so you definitely want to get that one booked as well again I’ll put a link in the description for that what a weekend huge huge huge thanks to Demo Terry Katrina Nev all the people involved in organizing all the people involved in making this such a fantastic weekend they’ve leveled it up i have had an amazing time everyone has had an amazing time here isn’t it absolutely even George you had a good time Georgie had a great time there you go yeah honestly this one is an amazing family festival guys so book it for next year right what are we up to for the rest of this year that’s the number one question we get asked what are we up to so in a couple of weeks we’re going to head off to Courtney yes um and how we’re going to do that is interesting i’m going to drive up there i’m going to spend three days driving up there lind is going to take two flights to get up there and two flights to get back so yeah that’s what we’re going to do um just me and Linds on that one now what are we doing for the summer the current plan is to go to Greece um they say you can’t take your motor home to Greece anymore so we’re going to take the motor home to Greece we’re going to have a look yeah they say no wild camping we’re going to find that out we’re going to do some campsites I think and there’s three countries we’ve not done down the bottom of uh Europe there’s three what north Macedonia Kosovo Bosnia Herzinia down in those states the plan is to do those as well anyway so I hope you’ve enjoyed the video guys if you have give it a thumbs up subscribe if you’re not we’ll see you on the next one [Music] say see you see you can you blow kisses as well

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We continue our festival road-trip this week taking our motorhome to the ​⁠VanLife festival at Shrewsbury’s West Midlands Showground. Our time there starts with wind fuelled disasters; smashed awnings and shattered windows.
Thankfully, as the event really kicks off, our experience improves. We spend fantastic times camping and hanging out with great friends. We also take time to explore over 150 trade stalls and food outlets.
Lyndsay enjoys a lovely reiki session and of course we have a fabulous time dancing and singing to the huge variety of live music. George and his friends even find time to set up a tent-less camp in the nearby woods.

Caravan Beds – https://www.caravanbeds.co.uk/

Leisure Bedding https://leisurebedding.com/

Vanlife Eats – https://vanlifeeats.com/

The VanLife Festival – https://thevanlifefestival.co.uk/

VanLove Festival – https://www.vanlove.com/

Our family have been roaming around the UK, Europe and US since 2007. We set off on each trip with only a rough destination in mind, allowing the roads we take and places we stop to evolve as we meet new friends along the way.

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